Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Bring to mind a time when you felt love. It doesn’t matter which way the love was flowing … it could be a time when you felt especially loved, or when you felt loving toward someone, even a pet, or with nature, or in an experience of meditation or prayer. As you remember, notice how you experience love in your body. What sensations do you notice right now? Stay present with the feeling of love, the sensations you feel, and your breathing. Rest into the experience of love, and let it expand inside you.

It is often the aspects of ourselves that we don’t love which show up when we least want them to. It is the parts of ourselves we don’t love which we bring into our relationships, wishing someone else would love them for us. It is often the part of ourselves we don’t love which we project onto others. However, there is hope. When we learn to love ourselves precisely in the moments we find ourselves the most unlovable, profound change happens.

To love yourself, it’s not necessary to understand yourself fully, to know what causes you to do what you are not liking or even to be connected with feelings and needs you are not meeting. It all starts with your willingness to love, right now. You have the power to bring love to any part of yourself or another, and to any situation. Loving does not imply approval or agreement. Loving is a state of being, and loving creates a shift. It is from the experience of love that learning can happen, growth happens, peace happens, connection happens, insight happens. Everything becomes possible.

I invite you to play with love in this way! What is it that you deny in yourself? Try the love shift…